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A Comparison of Electoral Formulae for the Faroese Parliament

In: Mathematics and Democracy

Author

Listed:
  • Petur Zachariassen

    (University of the Faroe Islands)

  • Martin Zachariassen

    (University of Copenhagen)

Abstract

The Faroese electoral system uses a method of proportional representation for distributing the seats in the Faroese Parliament (The Løgting). The electoral formulae attempt to give each political party a number of seats that is close to its vote share. In addition, each district should receive a number of delegates that is proportional to the number of voters in the district. We show that the current electoral formula has significant weaknesses, and propose 7 alternative electoral formulae which consider various subsets of constraints — such as lower bounds on the number of seats in districts and electoral thresholds. Numerical simulations with the current and proposed electoral formulae on the elections from 1978 to 2004, and on randomly generated election results, are presented. The results show that some of the proposed alternatives clearly are superior to the current electoral formula with respect to well-known quality measures.

Suggested Citation

  • Petur Zachariassen & Martin Zachariassen, 2006. "A Comparison of Electoral Formulae for the Faroese Parliament," Studies in Choice and Welfare, in: Bruno Simeone & Friedrich Pukelsheim (ed.), Mathematics and Democracy, pages 235-251, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:stcchp:978-3-540-35605-9_17
    DOI: 10.1007/3-540-35605-3_17
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Sebastian Maier & Petur Zachariassen & Martin Zachariasen, 2010. "Divisor-Based Biproportional Apportionment in Electoral Systems: A Real-Life Benchmark Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(2), pages 373-387, February.
    2. Gaffke, Norbert & Pukelsheim, Friedrich, 2008. "Divisor methods for proportional representation systems: An optimization approach to vector and matrix apportionment problems," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 166-184, September.

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